Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode4 (section)

===5===

“Teacher!!”

“Idiot, you need to eliminate the threat first! Even if we can fight these witches, we can’t protect your unflying tutor while we do it!!”

Viocia reflexively tried to go help Yagoro, so Melehe had to stop her.

“B-but. Eep. How exactly do we fight them?”

“If we can’t defeat them because of that invulnerability spell, we need to find a way around it! Maybe that means getting their feet caught in quicksand and maybe it means paralyzing them – I don’t know!!”

Their brooms let them fly around the cluster of buildings that continued to branch out complexly like a tree growing in fast-forward. These girls could easily beat the tutor to the large room he had knocked that trio to.

Viocia and Dorothea got Melehe’s help landing on the floor.

They heard a clanking sound.

The room was probably used to wash dishes and kitchen tools. The window was broken, the interior was smashed up, and Arbamini was embedded in the opposite wall, holding…something other than her Formula Broom. Pieces of the crumbling wall spilled to the floor along with a crystal flask containing a smashed-up wooden doll.

If they didn’t end this here, they couldn’t save their friend Moloch.

So they had to end it here.

The tutor had said he would teach Viocia how to make the impossible possible. He had told her they could still save Moloch and she shouldn’t give up on her friend so easily. Her grandma had told her not to go to too much trouble and her parents had been strongly opposed to it. When she told strangers she wanted to be a witch, they had all laughed at her. But her tutor had believed in her this whole time, so she knew she had to live up to his belief in her.

And she wasn’t alone.

Melehe and Dorothea also faced their enemy with brooms in hand.

Arbamini had destroyed several washtubs after crashing into the dishwashing room and now she was curled up by a broken wall, holding her nose and muttering to herself. Red blood dripped between her fingers.

She didn’t seem to be thinking about anything other than the tutor who had directly harmed her.

In a way, it was the purest possible reaction, which only made it more terrifying.

“Th-thad baftard. Who…who does he think is he is hitting a girl in the face!?”

Her red serpentine eyes wandered in search of a target.

Viocia realized something while she faced the girl who had taken in a Voland and remained in control.

Yes, something wasn’t adding up.

“Wait… The apparition’s prophecy was supposed to make her invulnerable, so why is she holding a bloody nose???”

“!?”

Yagoro must have figured something out.

He had already made the impossible possible.

And that wasn’t a special move only he could pull off. Anyone here could do it too.

Yes, that was right. Why had he attacked with a piece of Moloch instead of using ''that weird-shaped stick'' he always used?

“ ‘None of woman born shall harm you’,” muttered Melehe. “In the play, the loophole was that Macduff was born by caesarean section, so he didn’t count as ‘of woman born’.”

“Oh,” gasped Dorothea. “''And Moloch is a cooking tool made from bronze, so he didn’t have a mother at all.'' So you don’t even need the caesarean section. Eep. The loophole for her invulnerability was right there!”

And in this case, Arbamini and her glowing red snake eyes weren’t what mattered.

“Holibre and Lampans,” pointed out Melehe.

“!?”

“The three of you can draw on such great power by having each of you handle one of the Three Aspects. An invulnerability curse capable of containing a rampaging Voland isn’t your average spell. So you two are the keys here, not Arbamini herself. If we remove your support, Arbamini will be powerless to stop the Voland’s rampage!!”

The blue and green witches quickly readied their Formula Brooms, but it was too late.

They were only just starting to fight, but Viocia had already started.

“The Aspect of Admiration. ATU 0500, the Supernatural Helper’s Name. The imp can wield the greatest power as long as no one can guess his long name of Rumpelstiltskin.”

“That girl… Does she think she knows how our Three Aspects setup works?”

“Right? She can’t do anything. ''They don’t even know our family names''!!”

All witchcraft followed some form of logic. Usually regarding the Three Aspects. Macbeth’s witches weren’t enough. And as powerful as the Three Aspects were, they also provided a broad, shallow weak point to target.

Viocia Modestlucky was no longer a failing witch. Not in this situation.

She wouldn’t end this as an ignorant failure.

Because her tutor had taught her so much!!

“The Aspect of Antiquity! Faust was a tragic magician who had failed miserably at alchemy, but his life would never have gotten so bad if he hadn’t made a wicked deal with a demon. …That means the one thing all Three Aspects have in common with Macbeth’s prophecy is phony immortality. They’re all illusions created by pushing death away with a complex combination of conditions. So if we can take all of those away, you’re powerless!!”

Knowing how it worked wasn’t enough. Viocia had to put together her own Three Aspects magic to fight back.

The prophecy of Macbeth’s witches had already been defeated by the discovery that they could use pieces of bull-like Moloch since he was not “of woman born”. …For Viocia’s Aspect of Immorality, she decided to use the one that stole power away by making noise. For the Aspect of Admiration, she had a text in mind already. And for the Aspect of Antiquity, she chose Isis’s sistrum. That musical instrument kept the entire world in motion, which meant its sound could break free of a deadlocked situation.

Would that work?

Had she overlooked anything in her chosen countermeasure?

Viocia, Melehe, and Dorothea suppressed their nerves and raised their voices as one.

“ATU 0510a, Cinderella!! The bell signaling the ball’s end negates any and all magic, revealing the spellcaster’s original form!!!”

Viocia slammed a bronze piece of Moloch against the wall, producing a dull metallic clang.

That was all.

There was no massive explosion. No light flashed out and no noise boomed forth.

The silence felt strange.

“Bff.”

“Arbamini!!”

“Hey, Arbamini!?”

Arbamini doubled over.

She tried to calm her breathing but couldn’t.

“You used Cinderella’s bell? And church bells already have the legend of robbing a witch’s broom the power to fly. That’s a near-fatal blow for any magic that dresses you up to make you look more impressive.”

Arbamini honestly admitted its effectiveness, but she also slowly straightened up from her doubled-over position.

The serpentine red eyes shined and the Voland was still smirking.

They had failed to stop her.

“But did you forget? The official practice exam began ''after midnight'', which means you can’t use the end-of-ball bell that rings at the end of the day!!”

Something exploded.

The one attack blasted Melehe to the wall behind her. It didn’t matter that she was Carraway Cs’s ace with a practice exam rank of A. Dorothea paled now that their trump card was gone. Something flew in from a different direction and struck the girl, knocking her to the floor. Her glasses came off and skittered across the floor.

“Melehe!! And Dorothea too!?”

Viocia was the only one left, but it wasn’t over yet.

The entire place exploded. The usually-necessary approaching run didn’t matter. She couldn’t see anything, not even an afterimage. She assumed Voland-ized Arbamini was flying around, but she was wrong.

“Ah ha ha. Pass it here!!”

“Right? You gonna try using a Voland too, Lampans?”

“Pass me the control. We’ll be here all day if it’s up to you two.”

Macbeth’s witches passed between Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans. More accurately, they traded out who played the role with the red serpentine eyes. Witness reports of the Witch’s Sabbath mentioned a dance between the Voland and the witch using a broom. The tearing wind that was stirred up with a short delay revealed the great spiral being drawn around the poor victim.

She was beyond saving.

And since she couldn’t cover for the other two at the same time, she couldn’t ensure her friends’ lives either.

They were using some kind of projectile.

Since these were Macbeth’s witches, they may have been launching cauldron-boiled poison from their palms. But no matter what it was made of, simply being struck by a boiling liquid at ultra-high speed could be fatal.

Witches ruled the skies by flying at supersonic speed while remaining as maneuverable as a bicycle.

But that meant Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans were capable of attacking with sufficient speed to bring down that kind of witch.

Masses of scorching death attacked from multiple directions at once.

But Viocia still didn’t give up. She worked her brains like never before.

Raising a shield of the ointment that protected her body during supersonic flight would be meaningless. They were just too destructive. Any attempt at stopping their attacks head on would be easily breached.

So…

(I need to throw off their aim! Lead them astray!!)

“It’s not…too late!!”

Viocia scattered wax dolls smaller than chess pieces to create around a dozen phantom copies of herself.

She wasn’t aware, but her idea was more like the Earth concept of a flare than chaff.

It was a miracle she had managed to come up with this idea and act on it in such a short time. Her tutor was stingy with praise, but he might have rubbed her head for this one.

It was instantly neutralized.

But not by revealing which one was real. The dozen phantoms were shot through simultaneously, rendering them pointless.

“Ah ha ha!!” laughed the trio. “Got any other tricks up your sleeve to try and save your life!?”

Viocia really was the only one left.

And it was obvious she had been left for last to fill her with even greater fear.

She had refused to give up before, but now her throat dried up.

(Te-)

Tears welled up in her eyes.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shouted for help she knew wasn’t coming.

“''Teacher''!!”

“Oh, pipe down. ''You don’t need to ask every single time''!”

It really happened.

She received a response.

It didn’t matter how much damage he would take.

Myousou Yagoro actually thought he was lucky. If Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans had split up and attacked all three students at once, he really would have been out of options.

But they had chosen to focus on Viocia alone.

So if he protected her, he could prevent any of them from being lost. For that, he was willing to offer them his battered and slanted body.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”